Brown meat in convection oven (fi you have one – if not, your regular oven will do). (I think this is where the butter comes in, but the recipe never said. Rub it on the meat to encourage browning.) Then place in deep roasting pan with marinade and cook, covered, until done, about 3 hours.

Remove the meat from the oven and crush ginger snaps into marinade, thicken with flour. Pour gravy over saurbraten. (Or, slice saurbraten and then serve in gravy.)

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside. Melt butter and add Dijon mustard and stir to blend. Brush pieces of chicken with butter mixture. Roll in bread crumb mixture. Place on baking sheet.

This is the original recipe we had for White Chicken Enchiladas. In later revisions, we used our own homemade white cheese sauce instead of the canned soups, simple because we wanted to make a version without MSG, which canned soups have in spades. (And in high enough quantity, makes our hands itch!)

Fill 12 small flour tortillas with the chicken mixture. Arrange in a 9×13 pan.

Combine:
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 can cream of celery soup

Pour over filled tortillas. Sprinkle with 1 lb. grated cheddar and/or monterey jack cheese. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees, covered, for 10-15 minutes, then uncovered for 5-10 minutes more. (This is also microwavable – don’t cover it with aluminum foil, and add the cheese AFTER you microwave it and then let it melt.)

Note: First time we made this we forget to get chilies and made due with some dried red pepper we had – that worked too – a bit hotter perhaps though. Tasted good topped with more sour cream.

Sometimes you’re inspired to try something new, and sometimes you’ve just run out of the instant stuff. This is definitely the latter case. We had looked up a recipe from allrecipes.com a while ago, and decided to give it a try.

There are two main differences between the homemade and commercial versions (not counting the various “enriched flour” ingredients). The first is the use of butter instead of hydrogenated cottonseed or soybean oil, and the second was that the homemade recipe used only one egg instead of two.

The pancakes themselves came out lighter and softer than their commercial counterparts. The taste was good, but it felt a little like something was missing. We’re thinking of trying a second egg in mix next time to see how that tastes.

Overall it was a fairly easy process, and I liked removing the hydrogenated oils from the mix.

Now, after many iterations and recipe tweaks from ourselves and others, we’ve posted the recipe we use, below.

Homemade Pancake Recipe

1 1/2 cups milk

4 tablespoons white vinegar

2 cups flour

4 tablespoons white sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

4 tablespoons melted butter

1. Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to “sour”. (If you have buttermilk, you can use that instead of the regular milk and vinegar.)

2. Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

3. Whisk egg and melted butter into “soured” milk.

4. Pour flour mixture into wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are gone.

5. Heat nonstick large skillet or griddle over medium heat and coat with cooking spray or light oil/butter. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto griddle. Cook until many bubbles appear on the surface of the pancakes. Flip with a spatula and cook until browned on the other side.

This the kind of meal that comes about by scouring the refrigerator and cupboards to see what you can use! We had leftover cooked chicken, lots of fresh green onions, cheese, burrito shells, etc., so we went for the Chicken Enchilada option.

I made a cheese sauce with extra sharp cheese, and mixed that into the shredded chicken and chopped green onions and other spices for the filling. (So, technically, that makes this NOT an enchilada since we had no green chilis, but the spirit is there!) Then, we rolled it into burrito shells, topped with canned enchilada sauce (Ahhh, THERE’S the enchiladas! Nevermind what I said before!), and lots of shredded cheese, and then baked the whole thing for 45-55 minutes or so.

This is the result, served with a side of refried beans, which we found in the cupboard at the last minute and mixed with salsa for extra kick:

They were fantastically tasty, seen here topped with sour cream. I think we drank Lime Seltzers with the meal, which went really well. I love it when a plan comes together. 🙂